Sailing: Mystery of the mizzen mast

TIGHT security surrounds the development of a secret new mast design for Lawrie Smith's yacht, Fortuna, which sails in the next Whitbread Round-The- World race starting on 25 September. Smith needs to harness all the speed and power if he is to beat the new ketches designed by Bruce Farr.

His design consultant, Ian Howlett, who was one of the team that came up with the bendy mast in the 1980 America's Cup, has been given the freedom to experiment on the second mast, the mizzen, while the mainmast has been put even further forward in the yacht, which was transformed from a single- masted sloop to a ketch last year.

Howlett has most recently been working on free-standing masts, but Smith denies his new mizzen will be free-standing. With the new mast believed to be close to completion, Smith is steering enquiries away from the possibility that he is using fibreglass instead of aluminium.